Personality and Spirituality

The correlation between personality and spirituality should not be neglected. This is because our personality can affect the way that we build our spirituality. Based on Tim Lahaye’s model of 4 main personality types, we can briefly say that the cholerics tend to focus on doing. The phlegmatics are more passive, so they focus more on waiting. The melancholics tend to focus on thinking. While the sanguine tend to focus on talking because they are more outgoing. The implications on spirituality is that the cholerics may actually focus more on serving God more than building their inner lives because they are people of actions. The phelgmatics would tend to wait upon God which can possibly end up in procrastination because they tend to wait for others to take the lead. The melancolics tend to think too much and become too detail in which they may fail to see the big picture of what God is doing. The sanguine may be talking too much. They may be good at bringing friends but they may be shallow in their relationship with God.
Each personality may have its pros and cons, but we must not just build our spiritual lives based on what we are good at. We need a balance of all personalities when we are building our spirituality. We need to learn to do, to wait, to think and to talk. Why don’t we take some time to think how we have been building our spirituality? Has it been lopsided, just focusing on what we already are, or do we dare to move out of ourselves and build a more balanced spirituality?